


Final Stand

by Hamartian



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Titans, Romance, and some afterlife happiness, basically Levi's recollections, eventually, not as sad as you think, war scenario
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1929876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamartian/pseuds/Hamartian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi explains how the last battle - Humanity's Final Stand - against the Titans took place. He explains the loss, the wreckage, and the picking-up-the-pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Stand

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first SNK fanfiction. I rewrote this and rewrote this. I can't seem to be 100% satisfied with it, but I think it's as good as it's gonna get. I tried to proofread, but if I missed something, please let me know! Levi's p.o.v. Enjoy!

Years down the road, they called that last battle “Humanity's Final Stand.” It laid there, dormant, in words on crinkled pages of a text book for students to read about, for the world to learn from (supposedly). In all reality, it was a lot less heroic than it was made out to be.

 

Years down the road, they didn't remember the names of most of the soldiers who fought through that battle. Those that gave their lives that day, that were ripped from the pages of history, simply ceased to exist. A man from long ago named T. S. Eliot wrote, “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” That's how their lives ended. How most people's lives will end. No one remembers. Mostly, people die of pathetic causes in pathetic places. So many people in the world now. Humanity is commonplace.

 

It's sickening, if I ever really think about it (which I try to avoid). Even now, as an old man shorter than I was even then, it brings my blood to a boil.

 

I lived most of my life with a sheen of infamy. At one time, I was known pretentiously as Humanity's Strongest. Which was a load of bullshit, because I wasn't the strongest _anything_ in my entire life. I am (was?) as pathetic as any other frail, delicate human being on this slab of land that we think we now control.

 

I drew my strength from petty self preservation. I hated to see lives meaninglessly lost, hated to be the cause of those deaths, but I fought for my own gain all the same. I drew my strength from others: from blonde women with pure smiles, soft voices, trust issues; from angry, raven-haired girls holding fire and protectiveness in their eyes; from tall, calm men with everything to gain, yet everything to lose; and (especially) from jade-eyed boys with monsters clashing in his chest against the most passionate heart with which humanity had ever been graced. (All that passion, and humanity did nothing but use him until he had nothing left to give. He was only a _child,_ for fuck's sake.)

 

Anyway, the history books could never capture the feel of that day. The anxiety was palpable in the men and women behind me, beside me. Some wore bravely crafted expressions to hide the bubbles of screams clawing up their throats; others wore their terror on their chests like corsages, just a gaudy decoration to ceremoniously take them to their dance with death.

 

The heat of the day and the heat of blood pulsing too quickly through tender veins made the sweat pool under our uniforms. We'd had some time to prepare, we knew what was coming, but we weren't _ready._ No matter how planned an expedition or mission ever was, there was no way to be completely primed for battle with the beasts.

 

We'd known about the planned Titan attack because of Hanji, curiously enough. She'd been studying Titan behavior for so long, was so intrigued at the way they worked, where they came from. She, with a little help from Armin, was the one who discovered the humans who chose to become Titans (who wanted to bring about the fall of man so they could rule the world as gods, fucking idiots). We had to use _him_ , our greatest weapon, to bring them to their knees.

 

Dismantling Titans who were former comrades came easier for our weapon than it had been for him with Annie. (But it was still painful, wasn't it, brat?) With the few we'd “collected,” their plan came to the surface. A final hurrah for Titans, a final attempt at breaking through the walls and eating up every person left, destroy the last pathetic bundle of humans.

 

There was brutal, horrific carnage. There were a shit storm of Titans, swarms of gleeful and mindless giants that tore people apart slowly. The beasts licked their fingers, their lips and teeth, savoring the souls they devoured.

 

The smell permeated the air. I would never forget the thick, foul odor of musty copper. I would never forget the clusterfuck of movement, the crunch of bone, the gnashing of teeth against flesh. If I sat idle long enough, closed my eyes for a prolonged moment, I was right back in that moment. I could clamp my hands over my ears, eyes wide, try and push it away. I can't then, though. There is no stopping it from rushing over me.

 

My head is under the tide. I'm back there. I see it all. I hear it all. There it is. All the- _screaming, pounding, zipping, the building is down – get to another one – get off the ground damn it,_ _ **fuck**_ _, do we need reinforcements?, there are no fucking reinforcements!, Erwi-!, what do we do?, we fucking_ _ **fight**_ _, oh my god, blood – everywhere, fresh blood, still hot, shit, not Mikasa, no- not Armin!, we're losing control of him – he's losing it corporal!,_ _ **hey brat - stay with me!!**_ _, kill them, kill them all, killthemkillthemallkillthem_ _ **killthemall,**_ _kill the motherfuckers!, there are more coming from the east!, shit, ten more!, corporal!_

 

It went on for hours. The confusion, the bloodshed, the ripping and tearing and searing and crunching, went on for too fucking long. Like I said...carnage.

 

But, somehow, we “won.” We killed them all. We lost damn near every soldier we had. Only maybe fifty were left standing, and most of those were wounded. It took a few weeks for us to scout outside the walls and confirm suspicions, but the threat had indeed been eliminated. Humanity could rest easy. Except, of course, for the fact that it's greatest weapon was still standing. We had to kill all of them, everyone with the ability to shift, in order to be completely safe.

 

It wasn't the government's idea. It was the weapon himself who came to me and asked to die. (The only thing I had left, and you wanted to leave me alone for good, brat?) Yeah, he wanted to die, and in the sick fucking joke of a world where we lived, he couldn't kill himself because he'd just shift into the monster he despised himself for being if he inflicted his own pain.

 

I had sought him out that day, almost a month after the last fight. He still slept in the basement, in his little prison, though there was no point in it. I looked in on him through the bars that he closed himself each night. I watched him sleeping, still much too early for a man with no mission to wake. He was clutching a red scarf, his dead sister's scarf, and breathing heavily.

 

He was only eighteen. He was barely a man. From my place at his doorway, I could barely make out the stubble on his chin. He slept in a white t-shirt that clung to his muscular arms, that rode up to allow a peak of his flat stomach, not yet mature enough to be toned. Okay, he was basically a fucking kid, and he'd lost everything he'd ever known. Everything precious to him had been destroyed. I had not seen him smile in months.

 

I stuck the key into the lock of his bars, slid them to the side. His eyes opened at the sound, and _fuck_ , if his eyes didn't shock me still every time I looked into them.

 

“ _Corporal.”_

 

It had been so many years, but I would forever hear his voice echo through the empty halls of my mind. It was the voice of a man. It was almost comical to hear him speak while looking at his young face. The deep, sultry sounds he could produce should not have fallen out of a mouth so virginal.

 

“ _It has been your job since the start to kill me, sir. Please. There's nothing left for me. I could accept being a monster if I could use that part of me to destroy everything else evil. I cannot live as 'the only threat left.'”_

 

Stupid, shitty, fucking brat. He'd always, _always_ , known exactly what to say to me to get what he wanted. When a man looks you in the eye with such desperation, when his eyes dance with everything he feels, what the hell else can you do?

 

The only thing I'll ever regret from my existence will be giving that kid what he wanted. I will forever regret killing him, even though he asked me to do so.

 

Just like everyone else, his death was not noted. It was not a spectacle. It was not a date that anyone other than I would ever remember. We went far outside of the walls. We went to the ocean. We made love because there was no other way for us to show the impenetrable bond that had formed between us while fighting at each others' sides. We both cried. (It was so pitifully fucking beautiful, you know that? You hear me, brat? The most graceful, precious memory of my life, and you gave it to me.)

 

He wrapped that red scarf around my neck. He kissed me one last time. I stuck my sword through his heart. I took his wings of freedom, the last patch I would ever collect. (I vowed I would never utter his name again because he deserved his peace, and if I said it once, I would never be able to stop). I went home.

 

I was thirty-five at the time. I collected my stuff, left the walls, and never went back. I spent the rest of my life alone, traveling the world because the brat never got his chance to see it. And I saw everything I could.

 

When I got too old, I found a community of people that I could stand (because, eventually, people ventured outside the walls and claimed land at their leisure) near the beach. I built a house. I watched the white foam merge with the blues and greens of the water and let them remind me every day of eyes that sparkled with emotion, eyes that lost their light at my own hand.

 

When the evening has an autumn chill in its air, I wrap the battered scarf around my neck and venture up a weathered path to a flat rock overlooking the never-ending sea. I pull out the patch that has barely stood the test of time. I run my fingers over the frayed, unraveling edges and allow myself to think of his ardent, wistful words about his life after the final battle. Words he never saw turn into anything real, not that he ever expected them to.

 

Fifty years have passed and I am ready to see those eyes again. I am ready for my own dance with death. For so long, I have skirted around the dance floor, never allowing death to draw me near. Now, I want to embrace it. Now, death is just an old friend.

 

Men forget so quickly what fear feels like. Humanity forgets what it is like on the bottom of the food chain. Freedom is quickly taken for granted. I will not allow myself to see the day when they are reminded how to feel terror, when something else chooses humans for prey. Most importantly, I cannot allow myself another day of existence without those that I had somehow come to love.

 

I limp to the edge of the rocks, allow myself to stumble, and feel myself fall into blues and greens. I fall into the ocean, into his eyes. I smile, for the first time in decades.

 

“ _Eren_. _”_

 

“ _Wow, Levi, you're so short! I forgot! Ha!”_

 

“ _Shut up, you shitty brat!”_

 

“ _Ha, sorry, corporal. You kept me waiting, huh?”_

 

“ _Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Come here.”_

 

_Warmth, finally, once again._

 

“ _It's okay, Levi. I'm happy. I've been happy. I would've waited fifty more years if that meant you got to see it all.”_

 

“ _Tch. Brat. I saw it all, I just saw it all quickly. I wanted to get back to you.”_

 

“ _I'm glad. I'm so glad. Come on. The others have been waiting, too.”_

 

_Fingers intertwined, lips quirked, sparkling eyes, peals of laughter replace scorching, haunting memories. Peace, once and for all._

 

“ _Eren, I'm sorry you didn't get to see everything for yourself.”_

 

“ _Don't be stupid, Levi. I did. Through you.”_

 

 

 

 


End file.
